West Sacramento, a city just across the river from Sacramento, is eager to prove itself as a sports town that can succeed where Oakland failed.
Molly Morris, of Sacramento, holds her mobile phone up to take a selfie with her family Kloei Westbrook, 13, from left, Vada Morris, 11, and Maverik Morris, 2, while sitting on the lawn in right field during a Sacramento River Cats game at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, Calif., on Thursday, April 11, 2024. WEST SACRAMENTO — On both sides of the Sacramento River , proud residents of this region want the world to know: This is a sports town that is primed to succeed where Oakland failed.
On Thursday, after a fairly quiet lunch hour at Kin Thai Street Eatery in the city’s midtown — which is slowly recovering from a loss of bustle during the pandemic — a lifelong A’s fan and Sacramento native working the counter had high hopes for his favorite team’s arrival. “I think keeping here revamped our downtown and … uplifted an area of the city that was dilapidated,” said Jason Duvall, a Sacramento resident hanging out at Henry’s Lounge, a midtown sports bar. “You know Gotham after the bad guy comes through? That’s kind of how it was. There was nothing going on down there.”
But in more conservative corners of Sacramento, locals are quick to cast the jilted East Bay city as having blown its chance at retaining its sports teams, despite millions of dollars in grant money officials there raised to support a new waterfront stadium development. Meanwhile, despite its unique riverfront, the heart of West Sacramento is akin to the sprawling commercial district of a suburb, packed with fast-food places, wide roadways and a successive run of strip malls.
Baseball fans walk to their seats to watch the River Cats play the El Paso Chihuahuas during a game at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, Calif., on Thursday, April 11, 2024. Baseball fans arrive to watch the River Cats play the El Paso Chihuahuas during a game at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, Calif., on Thursday, April 11, 2024.
The city contributed $223 million to the Golden 1 Center’s construction through bonds and other new fees — an initiative ushered along by former Mayor Kevin Johnson, a retired NBA all-star. Unlike the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the A’s will not be known as the Sacramento A’s of West Sacramento when they arrive, but instead simply as the Athletics — a team from nowhere, in transit.
Amid a sea of black River Cats merchandise was a man in a familiar, unmistakably green-and-white SELL T-shirt — the all-caps directive thatCarter White, a Richmond resident who commutes to Davis for work and often stops by River Cats games afterward, waited patiently for a teenage girl in a cowboy hat to finish a rendition of the national anthem on the field as some fans clutched their chests and sang along.
West Sacramento Sports Town Sacramento River Oakland
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